Our city loses ‘Cleanest City’ ranking

New Delhi: The Heritage City of Mysuru has lost out to Indore in the prestigious ‘Cleanest City’ in India ranking for 2016. Mysuru, that had won the award for two consecutive times earlier under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, was relegated to fifth spot. Indore has bagged the first place followed by Bhopal, Vishakhapatnam and Surat.

Union Minister for Urban Development M. Venkaiah Naidu announced the Swachh Survekshan Awards in New Delhi this morning and said he is happy that the event has captured the results of spirited efforts of States.

The clean city survey was conducted in all the 65 wards in Mysuru by Quality Council of India in January this year. The five-member team had stayed in Mysuru for over a week and had conducted the survey and had also examined the city’s waste management and disposal system. This year, however, the competition for the Cleanest City award under Swachh Bharat Mission was tough as 500 cities and towns with a population of 1 lakh and above vied for top honours. This is in contrast to 73 cities with a population of 10 lakh and above that were surveyed in the previous years.

Venkaiah Naidu said that Gujarat has done incredibly well as 12 of its cities features in the list of top 50 clean cities of India while Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand have improved their cleanliness levels compared to the previous survey as well.

“Gujarat and Chhattisgarh are two other success stories, with most cities improving cleanliness rankings. All cities surveyed in Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand have improved their cleanliness levels compared to the previous survey,” he said. While addressing the gathering, mentioned that Swachh Bharat has to be a regular feature of our life, not one day’s job. “Making Clean India by 2019 is part of the mission of Making of Developed India,” Naidu added.

Highlighting government’s efforts to make India clean, Naidu said it has commissioned Swachh Survekshan in 434 cities and about 37 lakh citizens participated enthusiastically in the survey this year. “A noteworthy feature of Swachh Survekshan 2017 is the increased engagement and participation from citizens,” said Naidu.

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